KATHMANDU: On 27 March 2026, the government led by Balendra Shah approved a 100-point governance reform agenda from its first Council of Ministers meeting, which included one point on the education sector – ‘To resolve the problems of party interference in the education sector, the genuine voice of students not being heard, and the decline in educational quality, remove structures of political party-affiliated student organizations from school/university premises within 60 days and develop a Student Council/Voice of Students mechanism within 90 days.’ The agenda was made public the following day.
Four days later, on April 1, as many as 14 party-affiliated student organizations protested the government’s decision to remove student organizations, calling it unconstitutional and undemocratic. Nepali Congress-affiliated Nepal Students’ Union, CPN (UML)-affiliated ANNFSU, and others issued a joint press statement demanding the decision be reversed.
Similarly, on March 29, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology issued an ‘urgent notice’ deciding to fully ban all types of entrance exam preparation classes and bridge courses targeting students from school level to various levels of higher education starting from April 14, 2026. Education Minister Sasmit Pokharel’s social media posts even specified the grade level, posting a notice saying ‘targeting students up to grade 12…’ The decision was both praised and criticized. The notice of the ministerial decision was removed from the website within 24 hours. After intense criticism that the ministry was backtracking on its own decision, the response given was that it had been removed because some points needed clarification and the notice would be reposted with corrected language. Finally, on March 30, the ministry corrected the notice and published a press release banning entrance exam preparation classes and bridge courses targeting admission to various grades at the school level.
Educationist Prof Dr Bidya Nath Koirala says the government of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), which won nearly two-thirds majority in the March 5 House of Representatives election, has also not focused on providing solutions in the public education sector and improving quality. “One might say there are grounds for hope since the education minister is energetic, but he has also already been caught in the party web,” he says, “The new education minister came saying he would end student politics, and student organizations have already protested. He said he would ban bridge courses, and even on that he ended up having to remove the notice. Only the swagger of majority and position was visible; there was no talk of providing solutions and maintaining quality.”
The same old plans
The government’s 100-point agenda also include managing teacher seat roll registration and post-retirement service benefits from the provincial education ministry starting from the coming fiscal year. Additionally, the government’s action plan includes abolishing party-affiliated trade unions of teachers, professors, and others; having universities make procedural arrangements so that citizenship is not required to study up to bachelor’s level; publishing bachelor’s and master’s exam results according to the academic calendar; and ending internal examinations for students up to grade 5 from the next academic session.
These action plans brought by the new government are not new, however. For instance, Sumana Shrestha, who served as education minister from 6 March 2024 to 15 July 2024, had also announced plans to dissolve party-affiliated teacher and student organizations. During the tenure of interim government education minister Mahabir Pun as well, a decision had been made that the ministry would not recognize various organizations of teachers, professors, and staff affiliated with political parties. The newly formed government has continued this same agenda.
The government has been trying for 26 years to find an assessment system for primary-level students that causes no psychological pressure as an alternative to internal exams. The Continuous Assessment System (CAS) was introduced from 1999-2000 as an alternative assessment system to free students from the pressure of traditional written examinations.
Academic session 2082 BS went through four education ministers. As a result, the education sector fell under party pressure and matters of educational reform, quality, policy, and learning were overshadowed. In the year, after UML’s Bidya Bhattarai, UML’s Raghuji Panta, and interim government’s Mahabir Pun, RSP’s Sasmit Pokharel is now the education minister.
Bhattarai was education minister when the teachers’ movement was intensifying. After she resigned on 21 April 2025, Panta took over that ministry. After this, Mahabir Pun became education minister in the interim government formed on the strength of the Gen Z movement. In the RSP government formed after the March 5 House of Representatives election, Sasmit Pokharel received the reins of the education ministry.
Educationist Koirala says no meaningful difference has been seen regardless of which party’s minister comes. “No matter which party’s minister comes, they seem to agree on paying teachers’ salaries and running training programs, but no one’s attention appears to go toward making teachers accountable,” he says.
The progress of budget implementation at the Ministry of Education is also not encouraging. Of the Rs 60.56 billion allocated to this ministry in the current fiscal year 2082/83 BS (2025/26), only 58.44 percent was spent in the first eight months (until the end of mid-March 2026). According to under-secretary and spokesperson for the ministry’s Planning and Monitoring Division, Shiva Kumar Sapkota, 61.23 percent was spent on recurrent expenditure and 22.81 percent on capital expenditure. This makes it clear that the federal education ministry has been confined to staff salaries, service benefits, and daily administration. Spokesperson Sapkota says one must wait until the end of the current fiscal year to see the widespread impact of policies, programs, and budget implementation, as they remain in the implementation phase.
The issue of the education sector failing to reform due to non-cooperation from bureaucrats has been raised repeatedly. Pun, who was education minister in the interim government, expressed dissatisfaction with civil servants when he resigned to contest the election from Myagdi. He wrote on social media complaining that he was unable to work because bureaucrats did not cooperate when he tried to simplify laws and regulations.
Right at the start of the academic session this year (2082 BS), teachers across the country staged Kathmandu-centered street protests. Their demand was that the government must immediately bring the School Education Act. This brought to the surface the dissatisfaction, insecurity, and policy ambiguity within the education sector. When teachers left their classrooms to join the protests, public schools across the country shut down. The student enrolment campaign the government had prepared to launch from 15 April 2025 was also affected. Teaching and learning in the new academic session could not begin on time. The annual examination schedule for grade 12 had to be pushed back. Overall, this year’s academic calendar was disrupted.
Teachers had taken to street protests from 2 April 2025 with the demand that the School Education Bill pending in the House of Representatives be passed quickly and that they be assured salaries, benefits, and professional security equivalent to civil servants. Teachers who stood firm that they would only return to school once the new act was obtained extended and intensified the movement after their demands were not met.
The fallout from the movement led to a situation where then Education Minister Bidya Bhattarai had to resign. Despite repeated dialogue with the teachers’ umbrella body Nepal Teachers’ Federation, no conclusion was reached, and Bhattarai found herself in a bind due to then Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli’s stance of wearing down the teachers rather than reaching an immediate agreement. When a seven-point proposal prepared under Bhattarai’s leadership to address teacher demands was blocked at the last minute just as it was about to be passed at a Council of Ministers meeting, Bhattarai resigned as minister on 21 April 2025. She had become education minister on 15 July 2024.
Prof Bal Chandra Luitel, Dean of the School of Education at Kathmandu University, says the situation that led to Bidya Bhattarai resigning as education minister and Raghuji Panta taking over was a matter of the government failing to manage it politically. “The then finance minister and Prime Minister feared that the economy could not sustain fulfilling teachers’ demands and that the movement was actually a movement against their power,” he says. At that time, Oli had expressed suspicion that not just opposition parties but geopolitics had also crept into the teachers’ movement.
After Bhattarai left the education ministry, UML’s own Raghuji Panta took over as education minister on 23 April 2025. After a nine-point agreement was reached between the Nepal Teachers’ Federation and the government on 30 April 2025, the 29-day-long movement was suspended. The Council of Ministers had also passed that agreement, which included a commitment to pass the School Education Act through parliament within 29 June 2025. However, the bill was only presented to the House of Representatives on 22 August 2025.
Budget and time wasted on the bill
Although preparations were made to pass the bill in the second week September 2025, after the Gen Z movement of September 8 and 9, parliament was dissolved on 12 September 2025 and the bill itself became inactive. The goal of passing the School Education Bill through the budget session, which was also included in the policy and program for the current fiscal year 2025/26 presented by President Ram Chandra Paudel while addressing a joint sitting of both houses of the federal parliament on 2 May 2025, was not fulfilled. As a result, teachers received neither the law they had long been demanding nor service benefits.
The movement by youth on September 8 and 9 last year demanding good governance overthrew the then government and parliament was dissolved. An interim citizen government was formed under the leadership of former Chief Justice Sushila Karki on 12 September 2025 to hold the House of Representatives election. Mahabir Pun became education minister in the government on 22 September 2025. On 13 October 2025, representatives of the Nepal Teachers’ Federation drew Pun’s attention to the nine-point agreement made under the previous government. But with the bill already inactive and no parliament in existence, there was no question of a law being made to fulfil teachers’ demands.
Teacher and researcher Purna P Rai says the demand to standardize the various types of teachers working in government schools and the issue of service benefits have become mired in uncertainty since the bill lapsed midway. There are 17 types of teachers nationwide, including permanent, temporary/contract, relief, private source, organization grant, and child development teachers.
With the bill now inactive, parents who had hoped a path would open for easier education of children with intellectual disabilities, autism, and similar conditions have been left in a difficult situation. The bill had proposed that federal, provincial, and local governments coordinate to open schools of a special nature, including special or resource classes, for children with disabilities. The currently applicable Panchayat-era Education Act 1971, however, assigns authority only to the ministry to make infrastructure arrangements for operating special and inclusive education for children with disabilities.
With delays in making school education law, the constitutional obligation to enact a new federal education act that clearly divides the shared responsibilities of federal, provincial, and local governments in public education remains unfulfilled. In the absence of a new, timely law, Nepal’s school education continues to run on the education act made by the Panchayat government 54 years ago.
The government had introduced a bill on 13 September 2023 to amend and consolidate school education law as a replacement for the Education Act 1971. The then Education Minister Ashok Kumar Rai had presented the bill to the House of Representatives. On 12 October 2023, it was sent to the Education, Health and Information Technology Committee under the House of Representatives for clause-by-clause discussion. Nearly two years after it was sent to the committee, the committee only submitted its report to the House of Representatives on 22 August 2025.
Educationist Prof Koirala says the School Education Bill, which had been awaited for a long time, could not be passed because political parties failed to reach a point of agreement. As the bill became entangled in party maneuvers, budget was wasted along with time.
Policies, programs and budget limited to plans only
Although the government has continued efforts to reform the education sector, even as this year’s academic session has ended, several policies, programs, and budget allocations remain limited to paper.
Through the policies, programs, and budget for fiscal year 2025/26, the government had put forward plans to increase investment in the education sector, add/improve infrastructure, expand scholarships, and strengthen the IT-based education system. Policies and programs were introduced to improve the educational quality of community schools, bring uniformity in curricula of institutional and community schools, implement a ‘study while you earn’ policy with a minimum wage for up to 20 hours of work per week, and open residential schools targeting difficult geographical areas. However, funds could not be released this time either for the ‘study while you earn’ program, which has been halted for two years due to budget shortfalls. Technical assistant Jeevan Nath Nepal of the Planning and Monitoring Branch of the Education and Human Resource Development Centre under the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology confirms it has been two years since budget could be sent for the ‘study while you earn’ program.
The program to open residential schools was also not included in the budget for the current fiscal year. In the previous fiscal year 2024/25, however, Rs 1 million per school had been allocated for 10 residential schools.
The current fiscal year 2025/26 budget speech set a target of giving Rs 2.5 million per school to run results-based incentive programs in 100 schools, with at least one school per district. It was announced that schools would be re-mapped based on teacher and student numbers, geographical distance, and transportation facilities to merge schools, with provisions for incentive grants for merged schools. A budget of Rs 450 million has been allocated for this. However, the consolidation process the government began back in 2013 has not reached a conclusion this year either.
Director of the Academic Planning and Development Division of the Education and Human Resource Development Centre, Shyam Prasad Acharya, says school consolidation in 40 districts will be carried out by the end of the current fiscal year. Achieving this target is not easy, however. “Because communities came together to open them earlier, they won’t agree to close schools now,” he says, “It is the federal level that sets the consolidation and mapping criteria and gives directions, but the authority to implement rests with local governments. Fearing they might lose the next election, local elected representatives are also not finding the courage to merge schools.”
The current fiscal year’s budget mentioned establishing a teacher bank in collaboration with universities to prevent shortages of English, science, and mathematics teachers; mobilizing bachelor’s graduates in the role of volunteer teachers; and selecting one technical school in each province for upgrading to a model school. Director of the Teacher Management Coordination Branch of the Education and Human Resource Development Center, Madhav Banjade, says only the concept paper for the teacher bank has been prepared. “There is a lack of budget for this,” he says.
Similarly, the current fiscal year’s budget increased the midday meal program funds to Rs 10.19 billion to be provided to 2.8 million students up to grade 5. So, Rs 1.29 billion was allocated for distributing free sanitary pads in schools to benefit 1.3 million female students. Likewise, Rs 2.44 billion had been allocated in scholarships to motivate students from Musahar, Dom, and Chamar communities toward higher medical education. And Rs 560 million was set aside to advance infrastructure construction of medical colleges under construction and proposed in Bardibas, Butwal, Surkhet, and Dadeldhura.
The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology was allocated Rs 211.17 billion in the current fiscal year’s budget, Rs 7.51 billion more than the previous fiscal year.
Director Acharya of the Academic Planning and Development Division of the Education and Human Resource Development Center says the Secondary Education Examination (SEE) results are on an improving trajectory. The SEE results for 2081 BS, published on Ashar 11 (25 June 2025), are improved compared to the previous year. As much as 61.81 percent of students passed the SEE, compared to only 48 percent who passed the year before.
According to Acharya, the educational quality of English subject in community schools is showing positive trends, and the number of model schools and well-resourced schools is growing. However, he says that even as community school results are improving, student numbers are declining. He says that the inability to provide teachers as per sanctioned posts for key subjects like mathematics, science, and English has affected teaching and learning, and the impact of teacher shortage is even greater on technical stream education. “Because studies are not being completed due to teacher shortages and results have started to deteriorate, enthusiasm for studying in the technical stream has declined,” he says.…Read more by